The present invention relates in general to equipment for extracting oil from coolant liquids with oil in suspension, for machine tools and similar uses.
Such oil-extraction equipment includes an oil-separation unit which is supplied from a tank containing coolant liquid with extraneous oil to be separated on the surface. Skimming devices in the tank of the oil-extraction equipment are conventionally used to collect the oil and send it in suspension to the oil-extraction unit. These skimmers may be fixed or floating. In the first case, because the level of the liquid in the tank cannot be kept strictly constant and is normally subject to fluctuations, the skimmer may sometimes be situated either too far above or too far below the level at which the oil floats, obviously resulting in problems. In the second case, the fact that the skimmer floats enables it to be adjusted to the level of the liquid in the tank but does not ensure the necessary hydrostatic stability for the efficient collection of the suspended oil.